This invention relates to food, and more particularly to a dry pet food having both hard and soft characteristics.
Within the general class of pet foods, there are three basic subdivision: (1) dry pet foods; (2) semi-moist pet foods; and (3) moist pet foods. Each pet food of the particular class differs from the other pet food classes in that differing packaging techniques and palatability levels are achieved. (Hereafter pet includes dog or cat and vice versa.) Generally speaking the palatability level increases as the difficulty of the packaging increases. The dry pet food contains the least amount of moisture and is the most stable. Therefore, the dry pet food requires the least sophisticated packaging and is the simplest to handle and store. The semi-moist pet food requires somewhat more sophisticated packaging than does the dry pet food, but does not have to be sterile at packaging. The semi-moist pet food contains an intermediate range of moisture. The moist pet food has the highest moisture content of the three classes of pet food and is generally rated highly palatable. However, this pet food requires sterile packaging techniques. Thus, it may be seen that a dry pet food requires the simplest packaging techniques.
Dry pet food, while being very stable and easiest to handle and store, is not as palatable as the other classes of pet food. Conventionally, the dry pet food is a hard abrasive type of pet food. Although proper nutrition is provided by this hard abrasive pet food, the pet does not necessarily accept this dog food due to its hard abrasive nature. Yet in many cases, the hard abrasive nature is desired for teeth cleaning characteristics in addition to the nutrition and ease of storage. Thus, it is difficult to feed a dry pet food, with all of its inherent advantages, due to palatability problems.
One possible solution for improving the palatability of the dry pet food is adding water thereto. While such addition of water provides a somewhat increased palatability, the substantially hard dry particles are softened and, thereby, lose some -- if not all -- teeth cleaning attributes. This solution, therefore, is not suitable because you sacrifice too much of the desired teeth cleaning attributes to achieve palatability. The problems are not offsetting. Thus, this solution does not provide a desirable result.
On occasion, mixtures of conventional dry pet foods with semi-moist or canned pet foods are feasible for overcoming the palatability problems. However, such mixtures invariably result in rapid textural changes in the respective components. Moisture transfers from the semi-moist or canned component to the dry component, causing its inherent hard texture to become soft. Similarly, loss of moisture from the semi-moist component causes their inherent, soft, elastic meat-like textures to become hard. This creates two problems. The conventional dry dog food has its teeth cleaning attributes reduced or removed. The changes in the semi-moist result in a product having reduced palatability. Further more, at the high levels of moisture content in the canned pet food, the onset of microbiol spoilage is inevitably rapid. Thus, mixtures of conventional dry dog food with canned foods immediately prior to feeding has been the only possible way to achieve the advantages of the three classes of pet foods in combination. Also, the food formed by this practice requires immediate consumption by the pet in order to avoid the textural instability and the onset of the microbiological spoilage that inherently occurs.
Some progress is evident in the field of a soft dry pet food. However, this progress does not extend to the desirable teeth cleaning characteristics inherent in a dry pet food of the hard type. So, while there are two different types of dry pet food -- hard pet food and soft dry pet food -- there is no dry pet food combining the attributes of the hard pet food and the soft dry pet food. The soft dry pet food has the more palatable soft meat-like texture which makes the soft pet food in the dry state acceptable to pets. However, this pet food as above-stated lacks the desired teeth cleaning characteristics.
A mere routine mixing of the soft dry pet food and the hard pet food may be operable - even for marketing. However, the mixture must be highly stable for marketing and the inherent long periods of storage. It is, therefore, desired to improve and lengthen the time for storage and stability of a mixture of soft dry pet food and hard dry pet food. The lengthening and improvement thereon is a complex problem requiring substantial effort and research.
Thus it may be seen that it is advantageous to provide a dry pet food having both hard and soft characteristics.